Consecration to St. Joseph: The Wonders of Our Spiritual Father

by Donald H. Calloway

As a newly married man, St. Joseph never wanted to be far away from his wife. Mary must have come to him and expressed a desire to visit her relative Elizabeth for three months, and this must have been quite a surprise to St. Joseph. When we read this episode in the New Testament, we tend to presume that Mary did not ask St. Joseph to accompany her to Elizabeth’s. The sacred text, however, does not inform us of what exactly happened on this occasion, other than telling us that Mary went in haste to the hill country. We are not told if St. Joseph went or not. Many saints and mystics — St. Bernard of Clairvaux, St. Bonaventure, St. Bernardine of Siena, St. Francis de Sales, Venerable Mary of Ágreda, Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich, and others — believe that St. Joseph did accompany Mary to Elizabeth’s. Why wouldn’t he go with her? What kind of husband would he be if he let his young and beautiful wife make such a long journey unaccompanied by her husband? The New Testament does not explicitly tell us that St. Joseph went with Mary, but it also does not explicitly tell us that he didn’t. From a marital perspective, how could he stand to be away from her for so long? It actually makes a lot of sense that St. Joseph would have accompanied Mary to Elizabeth’s, and maybe even stayed there with her for the three months. It’s a very long journey from Nazareth to the hill country where Elizabeth lived (nearly 100 miles). Horrible things could have happened to St. Joseph’s beautiful ...